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Umicore expands product-offering for semiconductors

Umicore’s business unit Metal Deposition Solutions (MDS) has expanded its product offering in the growing market of semiconductors with the earlier bolt-on acquisition of its Chinese partner Shinhao Materials LLC. Shinhao focuses on copper plating in the advanced packaging sector.

Umicore and Shinhao partnered in 2019 combining Shinhao's technical know-how and intellectual property in copper additives under the IntraCu® product line with Umicore's global infrastructure and track record as a responsible high-quality materials technology supplier.

Global demand for semiconductors is growing steadily, driven by artificial intelligence, further digitalization and higher demand for advanced packaging from industries such as automotive, telecommunications and consumer electronics. IntraCu® is expected to benefit from applications in artificial intelligence (AI) and in display substrate applications and will also be manufactured at MDS’s site in Germany to meet demand in Europe and the United States.

Umicore Suzhou Semiconductor Materials Co., Ltd. (USSM) will be headquartered at Shinhao’s state-of-the-art research and production site in Wujiang, near Suzhou, close to MDS’s customers in Asia. The Suzhou site performs as a fully fledged hub for products related to vacuum deposition technologies, while MDS’s other research and production sites in Liechtenstein and Taiwan and are specialized in creating thin high-tech films or coatings in for instance electronics and optics applications.

Modern equipment, such as this scanning electron microscope for material processing and sample preparation on the nanoscale, enables high-level imaging and analysis of Umicores own product performance.
Laser microscopes at the site prove that the IntraCu® additive system provides material properties and crystal structures that eliminate typical limitations in semiconductor production.